Chennai Super Kings, Rajasthan Royals and Sunrisers Hyderabad have been eliminated from the playoff race. The performance of SRH has surprised everyone, considering they were the runners-up in the previous season and retained their core group for the Indian Premier League 2025. In fact, they added more firepower after buying Ishan Kishan and Mohammed Shami in the mega auction, but the results haven’t gone their way, and with just three wins out of 10 matches, Hyderabad are eighth in the standings.
Travis Head, Abhishek Sharma, Heinrich Klassen, Nitish Kumar Reddy, and Pat Cummins were retained with a belief of going one step ahead from last year, but all of them have disappointed so far. Nitish has been the worst of the lot.
His batting has lost the winning touch, and captain Cummins hasn’t used him as a bowler. After setting the Border-Gavaskar Trophy on fire, he was expected to give match-winning performances in the 18th season of the cash-rich league, but he couldn’t withstand the challenge of the tournament. In 10 matches, he has scored 173 runs at an average of 24.71 and a strike rate of 120.13 without a fifty.
The team management had to change his batting order to get the best out of him, but even this move didn’t yield positive results.
Pragyan Ojha, who played for Mumbai Indians, is still backing the all-rounder to come good. Sunrisers will take on Delhi Capitals at the Rajiv Gandhi International Cricket Stadium on May 5, and the hosts are hoping to impact the second-round qualifying chances of the visiting team.
“I want Nitish Kumar Reddy to play an Andre Russell-like innings against Delhi Capitals. He has all the shots in his batting arsenal, but the all-rounder hasn’t been able to execute this season,” Ojha said on the broadcasting channel.
For the record, Russell scored an unbeaten 57 runs off 25 deliveries, laced with 4 fours and 6 sixes against the Rajasthan Royals. He was named the Player of the Match after Kolkata Knight Riders registered a 1-run win at the Eden Gardens. Kolkata posted 206/4 and restricted Rajasthan to 205/8.